Page 81 of The Newcomer
“No offense, or anything,” she said finally. “But I find all of this hard to believe. Even for Evan Wingfield.”
Agent Hill nodded. “I get it.”
She placed her phone on the table, studied the screen, and paused before tapping an icon. “This is a recording of a conversation I had with Evan Wingfield last week. Remember, he thinks I’m just a greedy, crooked city housing inspector.”
The recording quality wasn’t stellar. It sounded tinny, with a bit of echo, but Letty recognized Evan’s voice instantly.
“Listen, ah, there’s something I need you to do for me.”
“What’s that?”It was a woman’s voice.
“You know they still haven’t found my daughter, right? I mean, it’s nuts. Maya’s only four, and as far as I know, that crazy bitch Letty could have taken her anywhere. She could be in real danger.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I was thinking, you have a lot of contacts, like in the city. You used to be a cop and you still know a lot of cops, too, right?”
“I know a few.”
“Somebody has to know where Letty is. I mean, she’s not some criminal mastermind, for Christ’s sake.”
The woman’s voice sounded bored.“Maybe you should hire a private detective or something.”
“I have. It’s like flushing money down a toilet. Nobody can tell me anything. That’s why I thought of you.”
“Really? Because Iama criminal mastermind?”
Evan got a laugh out of that.
“No, seriously. I want you to ask around. Talk to her friends at that diner. You have the kind of face people trust. I bet people tell you stuff all the time.”
“And then what? What if I were to find out where she is? I tell you and then you tell the cops and they arrest her and bring your kid back home?”
“Something like that… Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or we deal with Letty ourselves. You know what the courts are like. She’s a woman. Some guys probably even think she’s hot. She’d probably get off with a slap on the wrist—even for killing her own sister. No. She should have to pay for what she did to my family. Like, really pay.”
Letty felt a chill run down her spine. Joe had been watching her face carefully. He reached across the table and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Vikki Hill saw, but said nothing. She tapped the phone and the recording stopped abruptly.
“It goes on like that for a few more minutes. He dances around, blames you for killing Tanya, blames her for wrecking his business. He has some not very nice things to say about you, Letty. I tellyou, he’s pretty paranoid right now. Apparently, Tanya told him she knew he was paying off city inspectors, and she threatened to take what she knew to the police.”
Letty’s voice was hoarse from anxiety and lack of sleep. “About a month before she was killed, Tanya told me Evan was going to have to agree to giving up custody of Maya, and that he’d have to agree to her move to LA because she had the goods on him. But she never told me what she knew, or how she knew it.”
“Your sister was full of secrets, wasn’t she?” Vikki Hill asked.
Letty stared down at the tabletop, at the greasy, yolk-streaked remains of the FBI agent’s breakfast. It reminded her of the thousands of dishes she’d cleared in her years of waiting tables at the Lazy Daizy. And of sitting down, that first time, across from the polite, generous customer all the waitresses referred to as Table Two.
What if she’d blown him off, told him to take a hike that day, when he invited her to see the apartment he suddenly had available? What if she’d never met Evan Wingfield, or allowed Tanya to guilt-trip her into allowing her to move in with her? The what-ifs were relentless. They woke her up every morning, came to her in her sleep, or at odd moments when she was reading with Maya.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Secrets within secrets. That was Tanya.”
Joe drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “So far, all we’ve heard is Wingfield blowing off steam, which is not the same thing as asking you to find somebody to kill Letty. Did he eventually stop dancing around?”
Vikki Hill picked up the phone and tapped the fast-forward button on the recording. “Give a listen,” she said.
It was her voice, midsentence.
